This is a hauntingly beautiful song about introspection, specifically about looking back at a relationship that started bad and ended so poorly, that the narrator wants to go back to the very beginning and tell himself to not even travel down that road. I believe that the relationship started poorly because of the lines:
"Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet"
So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other:
"I had all and then most of you"
Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart
"Some and now none of you"
Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship.
This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
Old pirates, yes, they rob I
Sold I to the merchant ships
Minutes after they took I
From the bottomless pit
But my hand was made strong
By the hand of the Almighty
We forward in this generation
Triumphantly
Won't you help to sing
Another song of freedom?
'Cause all I ever have
Redemption song
We sing a song for emancipation
The words fill your soul, your every frame
Out with the day with anticipation
We harmonize on the very same song
Won't you sing along
We still so far, we are, we are
(?)
Redemption song
Won't you help to sing
Another song of freedom?
'Cause all I ever have (all I ever have)
Redemption song
Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery
None but ourselves can free our minds
Have no fear for atomic energy
'Cause none of them can stop the time
(?)
(?)
(?)
(?)
Won't you help to sing
Another song of freedom?
'Cause all I ever have ('cause all I ever have)
Redemption song
Won't you help to sing
Another song of freedom?
'Cause all I ever have
Redemption song
Redemption song
Redemption song
Redemption song
Redemption song
Sold I to the merchant ships
Minutes after they took I
From the bottomless pit
But my hand was made strong
By the hand of the Almighty
We forward in this generation
Triumphantly
Won't you help to sing
Another song of freedom?
'Cause all I ever have
Redemption song
We sing a song for emancipation
The words fill your soul, your every frame
Out with the day with anticipation
We harmonize on the very same song
Won't you sing along
We still so far, we are, we are
(?)
Redemption song
Won't you help to sing
Another song of freedom?
'Cause all I ever have (all I ever have)
Redemption song
Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery
None but ourselves can free our minds
Have no fear for atomic energy
'Cause none of them can stop the time
(?)
(?)
(?)
(?)
Won't you help to sing
Another song of freedom?
'Cause all I ever have ('cause all I ever have)
Redemption song
Won't you help to sing
Another song of freedom?
'Cause all I ever have
Redemption song
Redemption song
Redemption song
Redemption song
Redemption song
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More Featured Meanings
The Night We Met
Lord Huron
Lord Huron
Cajun Girl
Little Feat
Little Feat
Overall about difficult moments of disappointment and vulnerability. Having hope and longing, while remaining optimistic for the future. Encourages the belief that with each new morning there is a chance for things to improve.
The chorus offers a glimmer of optimism and a chance at a resolution and redemption in the future.
Captures the rollercoaster of emotions of feeling lost while loving someone who is not there for you, feeling let down and abandoned while waiting for a lover. Lost with no direction, "Now I'm up in the air with the rain in my hair, Nowhere to go, I can go anywhere"
The bridge shows signs of longing and a plea for companionship. The Lyrics express a desire for authentic connection and the importance of Loving someone just as they are. "Just in passing, I'm not asking. That you be anyone but you”
Dreamwalker
Silent Planet
Silent Planet
I think much like another song “Anti-Matter” (that's also on the same album as this song), this one is also is inspired by a horrifying van crash the band experienced on Nov 3, 2022. This, much like the other track, sounds like it's an extension what they shared while huddled in the wreckage, as they helped frontman Garrett Russell stem the bleeding from his head wound while he was under the temporary effects of a concussion. The track speaks of where the mind goes at the most desperate & desolate of times, when it just about slips away to all but disconnect itself, and the aftermath.
No Surprises
Radiohead
Radiohead
Same ideas expressed in Fitter, Happier are expressed in this song. We're told to strive for some sort of ideal life, which includes getting a good job, being kind to everyone, finding a partner, getting married, having a couple kids, living in a quiet neighborhood in a nice big house, etc. But in Fitter, Happier the narrator(?) realizes that it's incredibly robotic to live this life. People are being used by those in power "like a pig in a cage on antibiotics"--being pacified with things like new phones and cool gadgets and houses while being sucked dry. On No Surprises, the narrator is realizing how this life is killing him slowly. In the video, his helmet is slowly filling up with water, drowning him. But he's so complacent with it. This is a good summary of the song. This boring, "perfect" life foisted upon us by some higher powers (not spiritual, but political, economic, etc. politicians and businessmen, perhaps) is not the way to live. But there is seemingly no way out but death. He'd rather die peacefully right now than live in this cage. While our lives are often shielded, we're in our own protective bubbles, or protective helmets like the one Thom wears, if we look a little harder we can see all the corruption, lies, manipulation, etc. that is going on in the world, often run by huge yet nearly invisible organizations, corporations, and 'leaders'. It's a very hopeless song because it reflects real life.
Blue
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Blue” is a song about a love that is persisting in the discomfort of the person experiencing the emotion. Ed Sheeran reflects on love lost, and although he wishes his former partner find happiness, he cannot but admit his feelings are still very much there. He expresses the realization that he might never find another on this stringed instrumental by Aaron Dessner.
I think that the book Bob is referring to is a supposed lost, second part of the Bible. Basically what it boils down to is that Rastas believe that Ethiopians are descendents of the exiled people of Isreal, and that the coronation of Haile Selassie was predicted in the Bible, and that he is Jesus reincarnated (there is a lot of cool stuff you can read about how they justify this, Google "Lion of Judah" and "Rastafari" to get a better sense of it, I am no expert I'm just giving the gist of it). They believe that among the exiled peoples of Isreal, one of the tribes carried the Arc of the Covenant. According to Rastas, in the Arc of the Covenant is an additional holy book which contains a wealth of African-specific wisdom and spiritual truth.
I've read quite a few comments that claim that Bob was anti-religious. This is so false, he was not only spiritual but extremely religious: a complete zealot of Rastafari. Ratsafarians believe that over history and through many translations that the Bible has been corrupted and anglicized, changed to marginalize Africans and pander to Europeans. They contend that since we know the human species originated in Africa, that Adam and Eve were Africans, and the Garden of Eden and Mount Zion must be in Africa. So when Bob denounces religion (which he does do pretty often, like in "Get Up, Stand Up") he is criticizing the modern, white-washed version of Christianity.
I don't really know how this all fits into the whole song, but I am pretty sure that the book is a lost portion of the bible. I think that "We've got to fulfill the book" is an argument AGAINST "Some say it's just a part of it". In other words, I think he is saying that Africans shouldn't just accept oppression as a part of life, but that they should live up to the ideals of the true message of the bible, a message that has been diluted and corrupted over the course of human history.